Chinese takeout at the Next to Last Supper (Jesus was Jewish, after all)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 4, 2008
Mae just sent me a hilarious picture of the Last Supper, except parodied with Chinese takeout and fortune cookies, called the Next to Last Supper. She found it at Middle Earth, her favorite store for art. Some people would argue, this makes sense. After all, Jesus was Jewish.
Topics: Jews & Chinese Food | No Comments »
Mexican fortune cookies, called dichos
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 4, 2008
The Los Angeles Times food section did a recent piece on taco-shaped fortune cookies.
As Tom Miller writes,
Dichos, as the cookies are called, have been appearing at restaurants — Mexican and others — in southern Arizona in a haphazard pattern in which word-of-mouth has far outpaced formal distribution. Raul and Marina Montaño, the Douglas, Ariz., couple who came up with the idea after a Chinese meal in March 2007, have been fielding calls for their product since they opened for business just over four months ago.
The machine they describe actually sounds just like the fortune cookie machines, made by Yong Lee, outside Boston (thought they don’t mention him by name).
Dichos, means “sayings” in Spanish. Mexican-Americans are not the only ones to have a cookie-fortune-delivery device. There are “Mama Says Biscotti.”
Topics: Fortune Cookies | No Comments »
I don’t have a talk for 10 days and I’m so happy
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 3, 2008
This is my biggest stretch without a speaking engagement since I started doing book talks on March 3. (I did three talks in four days recently)
Yesterday I did the Flushing Library, which is one of my favorite libraries from my childhood, but arguably brings out some interesting characters.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Library of Congress Cybercast is finally up
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 29, 2008
A bit delayed, but my first talk from my book tour is finally up. It was actually, looking back, a fantastic event to kick off my book tour. About 150 people in the middle of the day (almost all of whom I didn’t know). That and the Politics and Prose event, also ~150 people, made me appreciate Washington’s love of Chinese food.
Topics: Appearances, Media & Interviews, Multimedia, Video | No Comments »
Auditioning for the Jews, who love Chinese Food (and Books)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 29, 2008
So I recently went to Los Angeles for a two-minute audition held by the Jewish Book Council, which coordinates the Jewish Book Network of some 100 Jewish book fairs and events around the country.
It is a combination of speed dating and the gong show or “JDate and a camel auction“, as Rachel Donadio wrote in The New York Times last year. You have two minutes (and they will stand up and pull you off if you exceed that) to charm them. They get a book with your picture and bio in it. (It really is like JDate! One woman even asked me if I were single)
Topics: Book Musings, Jews & Chinese Food | No Comments »
Charlie Rose Tomorrow is different from Tomorrow’s Charlie Rose
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 27, 2008
I did a segment for Charlie Rose Tomorrow, which is an online-only interview done by Charlotte Morgan of younger-ish people. But a lot of people have e-mailed/IMed me congratulating me for being on tomorrow’s Charlie Rose. And I realized that they think the sement is previewing what is showing tomorrow on the television show. But I’m impressed by how many people keep track of what is on the Charlie Rose Web site.
Topics: Media & Interviews, Video | No Comments »
Eric’s book party toast — a lesson in humor
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 23, 2008
Dave Lu of Fanpop finally put up the toast that my friend Eric, who hosted my book party gave. I swear. Like 20 people independently have come up to me and said his toast was fantastic or funny or memorable. It was actually an amazing toast. Part of it was extempted.
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Time: “its many revelations will force readers to consider the often strange routes their favorite dishes — authentic or not — took to the plate.”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 22, 2008
Ling Woo Liu did a review for Time.com just today. When it landed in my Google Alerts, I was like, whoa. Is this a review two.5 months out?
She too did not like the around the world chapter. Oh well. Here it goes.
The chic and pricey China Club in Hong Kong is about the only place in China where you’ll find fortune cookies served after a meal. Like the Cultural Revolution memorabilia in the club’s bar, the cookies are meant to be amusing and ironic. But the fact that they’re an in-joke among Hong Kong’s fashionable diners, as opposed to the time-honored conclusion to meals that they are in Chinese restaurants in the U.S., illustrates just how divorced real Chinese cooking has become from its American offshoot.
Exploring that bifurcation is the business of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee (whose curious middle name, 8., is a pun on the Chinese word for prosperity). A Chinese-American from New York City, Lee had her interest in Chinese food piqued during a year spent studying in Beijing, where she was continuously reminded that the real cuisine was nothing like the deep-fried, sauce-coated dishes U.S. diners thought of as Chinese. Chinese food in China, she knew, was much healthier, with less sodium and grease (and more varied animal parts) than Americans imagine. “Mainstream Americans don’t like to be reminded that the food on their plate once lived, breathed, swam, or walked,” writes Lee. Neither do they pause to think of just how Americanized, in the U.S., Chinese food — or more accurately Chinese-style food — has become. Lee points out that there are 40,000 Chinese restaurants in America — more than the number of McDonalds, Burger Kings and KFCs combined. “Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie,” she points out. “But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?”
Topics: Reviews | No Comments »
What is a chop suey sundae?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 22, 2008
Sent to me by a Proquest executive. Proquest Historical Newspaper Archive is very useful for historical research. I would not have been able to do much on chop suey, Chinese restaurants, fortune cookie and General Tso’s chicken without it.
She sent me an ad for a chop suey sundae…which piqued my curiosity
Topics: Chop Suey, Quirky | No Comments »
Maybe General Tso had a Mexican Cousin?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 20, 2008
Erin passed me a press release that from Chop’t Salad which hailed “the Mott Street Chop with romaine lettuce and spinach, grilled chicken, snow peas, water chestnuts, and savory Chinese noodles drizzled with the recommended General Tso’s Chipotle dressing.”
General Tso’s Chipotle dressing?!
General Tso, promise you, never saw a stalk of broccoli in his life (it’s an Italian veggie originally), much less a chipotle pepper.
Topics: General Tso, Quirky | No Comments »
Fortune Cookies: “except in bed?”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 19, 2008
This truly excellent comic from xkcd.com on the “in bed” phenomenon in fortune cookies.
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Quirky | No Comments »
Fortune Cookie Chronicles in Accra, Ghana
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 14, 2008
Yay. Fortune Cookie Chronicles hits sub-Saharan Africa before I do (I have only been to Mauritius). Sent to me by a fan. This is the independence monument with Kwame Nkrumah, pan-Africanist.
Topics: Book Musings, Photo | No Comments »
Random Photo of Black Bird that has Nothing to do with Chinese Food
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 14, 2008
This has nothing to do with Chinese food. But I found this photo I took in 2005 on a roadtrip through the southwest while I was cleaning up on hard drive for Chinese food-related photos. Thus I am sharing it with the world
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Fortune cookie fungus
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 11, 2008
Was browsing the Internet doing a search for fortune cookie by Super K (Kari-out) and stumbled upon this blog post on Thoughts from Miller Manor about fungus that looks like fortune cookies.
 Yummy?
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Quirky | No Comments »
In Denver’s SPJ’s adorable invite
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 8, 2008
Am in Denver to speak the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalist (a four star chapter at that). I just saw the invite for the talk and dinner. It’s adorable.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Fortune Cookie Chronicles on Local Library Signs
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 8, 2008
Did some library events earlier this week, and I love seeing the signs they put up with the name of the book in that piecemeal lettering. I love local libraries. That is how I grew up learning to read.
The signs remind me of traveling through Iowa and Ohio and places like that. (though these were both in New Jersey).
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Google knows that Jews love Chinese food?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 6, 2008
This is very odd. I looked up “Fortune Cookie Chronicles” on Google and was pleased that I was advanced enough to get my own little subcategories. It listed my most popular pages: Lee, Photos, About, Chinese food and then…a category called “Jews Love Chinese Food.”
.
That startled me, because as you see from the blog, the category page it links to is called “Jews and Chinese Food.”
I actually only use the phrase “Jews love Chinese food” once on the page, low down, in a post. So I have no idea how Google knows that Jews love Chinese food, or why it chose that as the headline. It just does. Perhaps the fact that Jews love Chinese food is a truism, universal in knowledge. Or perhaps the Google engineers have a sense of humor.
Topics: Jews & Chinese Food | No Comments »
Proquest, the American Library Association, and Fortune Cookies
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 6, 2008
I might be going to speak at an American Library Association conference in Denver next January (yes, Denver in January) on my use of the historical newspaper archives offered by ProQuest. I love ProQuest and even thank them in my acknowledgments. Basically their historical archives were perfect for something like my book — searching for early terms that may or may not show up in sporadic locations. So this helped me trace the history of fortune cookies, chop suey, General Tso’s chicken and Chinese restaurants. This is how I found the 1883 NYT article that asked, “Do the Chinese eat rats.”
It also made me really proud to work for the New York Times, because our content has been so good from day one. And the New York Times was as obsessed with Chinese food then as it was now.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Phoenix. Why is Chow Mein the Chosen Food of the Chosen People
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 6, 2008
I thought this invite, sent out for my Phoenix event this Sunday, was adorable.
Topics: Appearances, Jews & Chinese Food | No Comments »
A Chinese Restaurant in Venice (with a boat docked out front)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 4, 2008
My friend Kathleen took a photo of this Chinese restaurant in Venice for me (love the boat out front).
Topics: Chinese Restaurants, Photo | No Comments »
My Asia Society Conversation Now Partially in Podcast Form
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 2, 2008
I’m in a recent Podcast episode from my conversation at the Asia Society.
4/22/08: India Goes Hungry; Secrets of Chinese Takeout
The world food crisis and Asia, with analysis by Asia Society Fellow Mira Kamdar… Food author Jennifer 8. Lee solves a Chinese takeout mystery… and upcoming Asia Society programs in Mumbai and Hong Kong.
To the podcast: http://www.asiasociety.org/podcasts/subscribe.html
To my episode: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/asiasociety/eqec/~3/276217508/weeklyfix20080422.mp3
Topics: Audio, Multimedia | No Comments »
YouTube Celebrates Asian American-ness (and you can win an iPod Nano)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 2, 2008
YouTube and The Asia Society collaborated for a video series on Asian Americanness for Asian American Heritage Month. And I got to be included in it (very flattering). It’s a pretty fneat group — including a senator, Hollywood actors and a Silicon Valley start-up folk. The main video is a montage of interviews from a bunch of Asian Americans, and then we get our own video. And then Asian Americans are invited to submit their own and win an iPod if they get the one that is most watched.
Topics: Video | No Comments »
Boldtype: “The book balances history and cooking lessons with Lee’s humorous mythbusting expeditions”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 1, 2008
I’m recommended on Boldtype’s list this month (first book!). As their site explains, “Boldtype is a monthly book review focusing on smart, readable works of fiction and nonfiction, from current titles to past gems.”
Available everywhere from shacks that sell it alongside hamburgers to highly rated Zagat favorites, Chinese food is one of the most iconic comfort foods in American culture.â€Review
For over a hundred years, Chinese food has transcended religion, race, and picky eaters in American culture. More than a mere cuisine, it has become a cultural phenomenon — it’s a Christmas Eve tradition, a midnight indulgence, and a source of fortunes and good advice. Available everywhere from shacks that sell it alongside hamburgers to the highly rated Zagat favorites, Chinese food is one of our most iconic comfort foods.
In The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8. Lee re-examines this beloved food with a series of questions. How true is American Chinese food to its forebears? Who is General Tso, anyway? How in the world do those fortunes get inside the cookie?
Lee’s cross-cultural culinary journey began in 2005, when she learned that 110 second-place Powerball winners — a lottery record — had used the same set of “lucky numbers” from Chinese fortune cookies served in restaurants all over the US, from Montana to Virginia. So many winners bonded by the same picks was a first in Powerball history. After discovering this unlikely statistical coincidence, Lee travels the country to interview the different people who won big off of identical fortunes. Lee then takes her fascination over to China, to see if beloved American Chinese dishes match up to the originals, and, in turn, develops a sort of origin story.
Over the course of this investigation, Lee tells human-interest tales of cookie and chop-suey copyrights, describing the fights that have continued for generations (in and out of court) over the origin and ownership of these edible classics. The book balances history and cooking lessons with Lee’s humorous mythbusting expeditions; she delves deep into the transnational world of Chinese food while also chronicling the development of food-delivery services and the rise of popular chains like Panda Express and P.F. Chang’s. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is at once a historical, personal, and culinary tale that ultimately manages to be as savory as its subject.
-Diana Metzger
Topics: Reviews | No Comments »
Philadelphia City Paper: “after you’ve digested all of that cultural insight and fascinating trivia, you’ll still want more.”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 1, 2008
I’m just trolling and catching up with random reviews that I never got around to adding. Here is one from the Philadelphia City Paper.
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
By Jennifer 8. Lee
Twelve, 320 pp., $24.99
“This book began as a quest to understand Chinese food,” New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee writes in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. “But three years, six continents, 23 countries, and 42 states later, I realize it was actually a personal journey to understand myself.” Born and raised in New York, Lee tells a story of immigrants through the cuisine they spread throughout their adopted countries.
The chapters read like a loosely connected series of magazine articles, with fortune cookies providing the framework. Lee begins her book by trying to track down 110 Powerball winners who’d found their fortunes through one set of lucky numbers. From there, she hunts for the origins of the Pacman-shaped cookie itself. (Japan, as it turns out.)
But she cracks other mysteries, too, like where those takeout containers come from, why American-made soy sauce doesn’t contain soy and “Why Chow Mein Is the Chosen Food of the Chosen People.” In her quest to discover the world’s greatest Chinese restaurant, Lee makes cases for — among others — a celeb-studded Parisian joint, a Chinese-American chain in Seoul and a pricey dive in San Francisco before settling on a discount fusion foodery hidden in a Vancouver strip mall.
The book’s not perfect. Lee has a habit of repeating herself, and a chapter on one troubled restaurant family drags on without resolution. There’s fat to be trimmed, for sure. But after you’ve digested all of that cultural insight and fascinating trivia, you’ll still want more.
— M.J. Fine
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On hold, checked out, due. Fortune Cookies Chronicles in Libraries
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 1, 2008
In searching the NYPL LEO (and their research catalogue is CATNYP, adorable no?) I discovered there were 166 holds on 19 copies of the Fortune Cookie Chronicles at the NYPL as of May 1 (none seem to be in stock, oddly, they are all on order…didn’t this book come out two months ago?).
This made me curious about other libraries.
- San Francisco Public Library has 71 holds on 40 copies (what’s with the 3-star rating?!)
- Seattle Public Library had 185 holds (156 active, 29 inactive) on 33 copies (wow)
- Los Angeles Public Library had all 10 copies checked out.
- Chicago Public Library had 12 copies, all out or on hold.
- Boston Public Library had 11 of 12 copies out or on hold.
- Brooklyn Public Library had 10 copies out or on hold.
- Queens Public Library’s catalogue is down for computer maintenance, but they should have a bunch.
Yay.
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »